The father enabled him (as well as the younger daughter Renate)[3] after attending a secondary school and an arts and crafts school in Basel (both children had Swiss citizenship), from 25 September 1925 he began attending the Untersekunda (UII, 10th grade) of the reform educational Landerziehungsheim [de] Schule am Meer on the East Frisian Islands Juist, from which he left on 18 July 1926 without graduating, to continue his school career there from 14 January 1927.
On 24 January 1929, he left there prematurely without graduating,[4] the school-leaving examinations took place annually in March.
There he was responsible in an architectural partnership with Ernst Friedrich Brockmann for the construction of the Europahalle, built in 1950, and the Leuchtenhochhaus and the Elektrohalle, completed in 1958, all on the Hannover Fairground.
Together with Ernst Brockmann, Lichtenhahn won the architectural competition to build the Grugahalle in Essen, which was completed in 1958.
Essen's Gildenplatz - renamed Kennedyplatz in 1963 in memory of the assassinated US president - was redesigned according to Lichtenhahn's plans and featured an elongated, terraced fountain on its eastern long side (demolished in 1989).